Approximately 12 customers have had money stolen

Approximately 12 customers have had money taken and have not received a shed – Shedeye has been personally contacted by a few and this has seriously affected some people. Some people have taken out loans to pay for the sheds, paid in full, and will now be left with the sting of repayments.

A call out to the Shed Industry to assist the victims

Any shed company or rollformer that aids these victims, with the intention of minimising or neutralising the loss of the consumers, will have free advertising on this site for a year, and the satisfaction that they have helped people out in need. I will provide a list of the shed sizes and the loss made on each shed next week and who ever can do the best deal will get the advertising.

A call out to the any victims that need help getting a Shed

Any person that has paid money to Sidach North or Sidach South and has not received a shed, can you please contact us using this link. I hope that the industry will help, as there are so many great players in this industry and this type of behaviour is simply wrong.

Some more background

How does this happen when it is backed by a big name in the industry? There are a few models that are operated in the Shed Industry, and the Sidach model was to brand their distributors with their name even though they are legally separate entities. There is Sidach National and then in Tasmania there were three distributors that were contracted to provide Sidachs sheds. Sidach makes money in a number of ways, from a booking fee when the order it place, and markup on the shed and components and rebates from the rollformers.

As seen below these companies are all branded under the Sidach brand.

It is clear from the below newspaper excerpts that Sidach is very keen to make it clear that these stores are independent, what they forgot to mention is that they were all branded under the Sidach brand. Why Sidach has not simply compensated these victims is completely bewildering to Shedeye.

The are a number of stories behind this tragedy, this can not become another Shed Warehouse or McFadden Kit Homes.

Who are the market leaders in Australia by number of Shed Distributors?

The Shed Distributor Leader Ladder (by number of distributors per state)

Australian Capital Territory (ACT)

Fair Dinkum Sheds, Ranbuild and Total Span

Others

A three way tie for first place in Canberra. Commercial land is prohibitively expensive and is as rare as hens teath in the ACT so most of the distributors set up camp in nearby NSW border towns of Queenbeyan and Murrumbateman!

The top 3 have most of the market!

New South Wales (NSW)

Ranbuild

Fair Dinkum Sheds

Wide Span Sheds

Capital Steel Buildings

The Shed Company

Garge World

Allgal

Titan

Totalspan

Sidach Sheds

Sheds Online

Metromax

Others

The top 3 have over 56% of the market.

Northern Territory (NT)

Ranbuild

Sheds Online , Sidach Sheds, Fair Dinkum Sheds

Others

Queensland (QLD)

Ranbuild

Titan

Fair Dinkum Sheds

Totalspan

Wide Span Sheds

Garge World

Tuff-Span

The Shed Company

Sheds Online

Australian Garages and Carports

Capital Steel Buildings

Others

The top 3 have 47% of the market. QLD is clearly a very mature shed market as is evident by the very equal distribution of distributors across the top half a dozen. When you take a look at the origins of many Australian Shed Companies, QLD is where it all began.

South Australia (SA)

Fair Dinkum Sheds

Ranbuild

Wide Span Sheds

Garage World

Sidach Sheds

Others

The top 3 have over 75% of the market.

Tasmania (TAS)

Sidach Sheds

Fair Dinkum Sheds

Ranbuild

Widespan

Others

Victoria (VIC)

Sidach Sheds

Ranbuild

Fair Dinkum Sheds

Totalspan

Wide Span Sheds

The Shed Company

Capital Steel Buildings

Garage World

Sheds Online

Others

Top 3 have 74% of the market.

Western Australia (WA)

Ranbuild

Wide Span Sheds

Fair Dinkum Sheds

Garage World

The Shed Company

Sheds Online

Others

There is some real competition in the distributor sector, even when you consider that the big guys own quite a few of the biggest players. There is clear domination in some state, with others laying the battle ground as brands extend from their founding locations, it is starting to heat up! Watch this space.

Who exactly are each of these distributors?

Ranbuild started small in 1949 and was then know as the R & N Building Company, and was based in Newcastle, NSW. Ranbuild was purchased by Lysaght (Bluescope) in 2004 and is now the biggest wholesaler group in Australia. Ranbuild is a powerful brand in the Shed industry and it easily identified by the muscle bound builder.

Fairdinkum Sheds, trading as AG&S Building Systems Pty Ltd was purchased by Stramit in August 2007. Fairdinkum Sheds is the second largest wholesaler shed group in Australia and it too has a very powerful brand, the slogan “Get it into your head, get a Fairdinkum Shed” is a classic! Fairdinkum sheds operates in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom (trading as Contour Steel Buildings) and South Africa.

Totalspan is part of the Versatile Buildings group and is a major player in the shed wholesaler game. They have numerous distributors spread throughout Australia and NewZealand. The Versatile group also owns Spanbilt Sheds. Totalspan sources its materials from Lysaght (Bluescope).

Wide Span Sheds is another big player and was founded in Queensland (most of the shed companies in Australia started in QLD, see why here) in the year 2000. They have an even spread of distributors around Australia. Widespan Sheds sources its materials from Lysaght (Bluescope).

The Shed Company is a shed wholesaler and distributor franchise system founded in late 2004, effectively the same as most of the other players with more discrete boundaries for its distributors. The Shed Company sources its materials from Stramit and has a good coverage of distributors across Australia.

Garage World / Shedboss is owned by the same company as Fairdinkum Sheds. Stramit, also know as Fletcher Building Group acquired the Morinda group (who owns both the ShedBoss and Garage World brands) in May 2008.

Titan Garages & Sheds is a privately owned family business that has been around since 1991. Titan is unique to its peers in that it has complete verticle integration in the shed supply chain, being the distributor, wholesaler and manufacturer. They are very strong in QLD and are starting to make inroads into other states.

Sidach Sheds is another privately owned family business that started from the opposite end of the country, in sunny Tasmania. The have grown aggressively and dominate Tasmanian and Victoria. They currently source their materials from Lysaght (Bluescope).

Metromax is one of the few distributors that does not pay ball in the rollforming arena of Lysaght and Stramit. The have a “close association” with Metroll and source their materials from them. They don’t have a great deal of distributors, however they leverage Metrolls network of sites.

Tuff-Span is a player in the QLD market and unlike their competitors they deal with Fielders to source their materials. Fielders is a small player in the shed market relative to its massive peers, however Fielders does have is own brand called Fielders Endurance Sheds & Structures.

There are still a few missing from this list, they will be added shortly.

If you don’t want to meet a Shed Distributor at a party then it’s a good idea to live in Canberra. But if you do want to meet one, then live in Queensland!

Shedeye has conducted a study to determine the distributor density per state and the results are interesting!

State

Indexed Relative Number of Distributors per capita

ACT

100

SA

190

VIC

196

NSW

223

TAS

295

NT

319

WA

324

QLD

493

This shows that you are nearly 5 times more likely to meet a shed distributor in QLD than if you live in the ACT. Victoria and SA are the surprise here, both with very large populations but with a relative low distributor population per capita.

This gets even more interesting when you start to question why, as there are quite logical reasons for this disparity. Taking a look at Land Area, Population density and the % of the population in the capital city in each state shows a good part of the story.

Combining all of this data shows strong correlation between the percentage of population in the capital cities, an almost linear relationship with a couple of blips! The population density has less of a correlation, due to most of Australia being an arid and barren place.

State

Indexed Relative Number of Distributors per capita

Population density (/km²)

% of population in capital

ACT

100

137.53

99.6%

SA

190

1.56

73.5%

VIC

196

23.87

71%

NSW

223

8.44

63%

TAS

295

7.08

41%

NT

319

0.15

54%

WA

324

0.79

73.4%

QLD

493

2.26

46%

The correlation is very clearly related to the population density and the % population in capital cities. One of the reasons for this correlation is attributed to the size of the blocks of land; small suburban blocks may not be suitable to hold large domestic sheds, while larger blocks are. Hence the percentage of the population in the capital city is one of the strongest influences, coupled with the policies governing the size of the blocks and the restraints in regard to planning permits on sheds in these cities.

QLD has the best conditions for Shed Distributors in Australia, with a relatively low centralization of population in the capital city and a relatively low population density. Victoria is the real surprise with very high percentage of the population in the capital and a very high population density relative to all other states. This again is a clear indicator of why there are relatively less distributors in Victoria.

The story is a bit more complex than the above tables indicates. As with all statistics there is more to some of these stories than meets the eye. For example, the Canberra market is largely served by nearby NSW border towns, due to the prohibitively expensive and rare commercial land in the ACT. That said, I think you will find that this is an interesting piece of analysis!

Shedeye has analysed the shed industry down to discrete regions to ascertain potential areas that are saturated or under-serviced. This report is available on request from support@shedeye.com.au